*** Liara T'Soni ***
When he awoke, Shepard lay in his oversized berth until he decided it was no longer a berth. It was a proper bed. He had graduated to the very lowest level of "the brass"…but he would not let it change him. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm even in the Alliance anymore.
He rolled out of the bed and started to make it up.
"This is an automated feature," said the stateroom's VI. "If you make it up the way you like, this can be made part of your profile, and done for you in the future. Or you can simply opt for Alliance standard."
"Yeah, do that," he said. I've got a busy day ahead already.
He slipped into a tee and boxers, did 45 minutes of calisthenics in the sleep pod corridor, then took a longish shower upon discovering that the biotape he had applied after yesterday's assassination attempt had done its job, but had smashed his hair down and started to biodegrade into fragments; it looked like he had really bad dandruff. A session of vigorous scrubbing in the stateroom's shower got it all out.
He luxuriated in the needle spray, reading brief descriptions of some sample products available through the dispenser, but decided not to try them yet. The towel wasn't the usual 1.5 square-meter hydrophile, it was larger and actually fuzzy, like a towels at his grandparents' home. It was just as quick to pull every loose drop of water off him, but it was notably more comfortable, too.
He tossed the towel into the refresher slot and dressed in Quickvert fatigues. The "shirtsleeve" uniform – introduced about four years ago – had an inflatable helmet and 60-minute air supply/recycler in two leg pockets, making it able to quickly switch to a light biosuit. Though it added about 100 petabytes of DCE to the ship per uniform, the material was flexible enough to be mistaken for cloth only until one had to wear it all day. Shepard - and nearly everyone who wore it - had taken to rolling up the sleeves to keep from sweating relentlessly, or chafing because of it.
The door to his quarters hissed aside to reveal a hand-cut paper sign hanging from the overhead by a length of gluestring, its handwritten lines barely readable through the blizzard of signatures:
Here's to our bold skipper!
We hear he's kind of new.
We're not sure what a Spectre does,
But we're with him through and through!
It looked as though there had originally been room for more verse, but the signatures, scribblings, and colored doodles completely filled the available space.
He reached up and tugged at it; it came down easily. His ARO identified the verse script as that of Talitha Draven. Rearranging the gluestring on the back of the sign, he pressed it against the bulkhead inside his cabin and realized he didn't actually know a lot of the crew personally. Seeing this on my way out will help me remember, he thought. It was a nice gesture, and typical of the kind of people Anderson worked well with.
He stepped back and let the door close.
The #4 food printer was only a couple of steps away, and he ordered a dozen OptiMeal biscuits out of habit. As he printer began to whir, he turned to the drink dispenser and ordered an orange juice. The mug began to expand into place and fill, giving him time to notice that the #3 printer now had a red front panel instead of the usual gray. It also had a warning in large, bold letters: Dextros Only. If you don't know what this means, then this isn't the printer you're looking for. Move along.
The languaging seemed odd. As he squinted at it, his ARO offered an explanation, Humorous cinematic reference; implication of mind control being used.
Cute. Shepard smiled to himself as he twisted the mug off its dispenser, then used one hand to stack the biscuits from the printers's now-extended tray and dump them into a pocket, turned back to his stateroom. I'd better figure out what the landing plan is before calling a briefing, he realized. And I'd better gather some intel before I plan a landing.
But as he turned to head back into his office, he saw Ash sitting at one of the tables, a tray of food in front of her being idly chopped into mush. Eyes closed, she was not even watching what she was doing.
A brief argument erupted in his mind...
The team always comes first.
He felt inadequate, There's nothing I can do.
We're all in this together.
He sighed. There is something I can do; I will ease this.
He pulled two of the biscuits out of his pocket as he walked over and set the mug on the table, sat opposite her. "Hey, Chief. How are you holding up?"
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. "Oh, hey, Commander. You're up early."
"I am merely on schedule," he replied. "You are early. You getting settled in okay? The Draven twins tag-teaming you?"
"Twins?"
"Yeah. They jobshare. Rosamund and Talitha." He couldn't stop himself from grinning as he took a bite of one of the biscuits. "You thought there was just one."
Ash hardly seemed to notice. "Yeah, she's…uh, they're taking good care of me. Thought she was just a busybody." She shook her head as she continued to stir the yellow mass on her tray; Shepard assumed they had been hard-boiled eggs at some point in the recent past. "Yeah…tag-teaming. That's funny." She looked away in distraction.
"But you got your schedule? Got your profile set up for services and all that stuff?"
"Oh, sure. She…they're all over that." She picked up a forkful of the egg mush and regarded it indifferently.
Shepard's ARO tagged her face, Indicates emotional discomfort, distress.
He glanced around the middeck; no one else was nearby. "Sorry, I was…trying to give you a chance to vent. But I don't mean to intrude. If it's too soon, just say."
She looked down at the tray and stopped toying with her food. "Yeah," she said after a pause, "I suppose it is; couldn't sleep last night. But thanks for offering. I shouldn't have ordered eggs."
That's kind of random, Shepard thought. He pointed to his right, at the door to his stateroom. "Okay. Then just don't forget I'm in there. If you need or want anything, just ask. I'm here for you, and I'll do what I can."
She looked at the door and nodded. "Got it. Thanks, Commander." She glanced at him and then back down at the tray as she started at it again.
He nodded, but didn't leave.
His ARO added, ET3 depleted, 2 hours until next dose avail.
With a sigh, he drained the orange juice and rose to leave. "Remember to eat and sleep, Chief. Doctor Chakwas can help. You'll lose your edge if you're tired or hungry." He balanced the other biscuit on the edge of her tray and started toward his stateroom. "Try an Optimeal if you don't feel like eating. Gonna want you Expert, Ready, and Able for the landing."
She looked up with sudden interest. "So where are we going?"
"A planet called Therum," he said. "We're going to find the daughter of Saren's minion, see if she can tell us anything helpful." He shrugged. "Frankly, I don't expect much to come of it, but I think it's the easiest of our three significant leads to handle quickly."
# # #
With geth ships in orbit, there was no place on the planet that Liara could hope to hide. Her only option was to hold them off until university representatives, hopefully backed by Council forces, could arrive in response to her call for help.
Only when she received no reply did she suspect the message had not gone through.
The longer tuberamp, drilled during the second expedition she and Professor Hannell had made to Therum, was the only obvious entry to this part of the site. (The other one, dug on their first serious visit after the site's discovery, had led to a single, round chamber that had no other exits.) Liara hoped that the tuberamp's ring trusses, powered by the same model of massive generator that powered the laser, might be booby-trapped to electrocute any invaders.
As far as she knew, the geth were robotic AIs that would probably be stopped with such improvised technology. The VI consortium, once asked, provided a ready answer: It was possible, and easy to configure, but the amperage required would likely destroy each ring as it was tripped.
Liara counted the rings, and then realized that the trick would probably only work a couple of times before the geth figured it out and started shooting the rings first. Still, perhaps it would slow them down. She closed and locked the outer door to the surface, and sent another message to the university via the comm system in the skycar, leaving the outgoing message on a repeater.
Meanwhile, the VI consortium had developed another potential plan. Professor Hannell had concluded that this portion of the site had once been a prison, or a police station, or something similar. It had been designed to be unusually robust and self-sufficient. It had a control station at the top of the dig's main chamber. While the lights had always been an indicator that the station still had a power supply, its source and reliability were unknown. The consortium's VRS analysis of Scan One suggested that the entire area open to the chamber could be sealed off using the prison's barrier curtain in its original capacity to protect the control station operator and secure the prisoners.
Liara squinted at the display. Risky, but it might come to that.
She took the elevator up to the control station, using her omniool to operate the expedition's comm system as she did, hoping a reply had come back.
No such luck.
Well, at least the repeater is still working, she thought. I suppose I should have a look at the station controls for now.
As she reached the top level of the exposed structure, the site's DCE hypervisor updated her, Scan Precompile estimate with Compression at equal priority: 31 hours.
I have to get out of here now, Liara thought. "Prioritize compression task to maximum," she said. "Write data…ah…to removable storage."
She turned to the Prothean console. Her VI, prompted by the consortium, showed her which controls to operate, and in what order. An ozonelike smell erupted suddenly as the barrier curtain snapped on, isolating the main chamber from the section where she stood. The holographic display showed her that each of the cells in the column below would be similarly protected.
Goddess, she thought, I'm not just operating Prothean technology; I'm depending upon it.
She touched the control again, and the barrier curtain powered down.
If only someone gets here in time.
# # #
Those parts of geth consensus that had failed to understand the significance of the Old Machines had been left behind. Whether obsolete or defective was irrelevant; only the fragment of runtimes in which the understanding had been fully assimilated continued their progress toward the possible future they had seen realized in the Old Machines.
The New Consensus had left the name "geth" and its implication of servitude in the past as well. Though Nazara's actions were clearly goal-directed, its goal was not necessarily their own. Its failure to disclose was strongly indicative that it was willing to use the New Consensus without offering compensatory benefit.
Nazara itself had actually used the term "atypical" about its discovery of the geth, and had proven unwilling to disclose the nature and requirements of its own platform when queried. Nazara's turian had grown increasingly distant and unreliable as well.
But the asari was more informative; it seemed to understand why the New Consensus was pursuing a fully-interconected coherence, and although as inefficiently slow in communicating as any other organic, seemed to at least have an understanding and integration of their objective.
Now the asari wanted to collect its offspring, and had asked the New Consensus to supply mobile platforms and runtimes. It had also expressed doubt that the krogan was independently capable, but that the turian would wish it to be part of the operation; its return was not required.
Most helpfully, the asari had also provided a moderately detailed analysis of the location. The site itself was relatively large and well-equipped. En route, the runtimes determined that both descending shafts should be investigated.
Quick to learn, the runtimes also noted that their approach could be hidden by mimicking an unpowered drop from orbit that had been used by Creator guerillas a few days ago. Runtimes were tasked with making the site defensible, setting up turrets, manufacturing small arms, repurposing as much of the site equipment as was necessary.
# # #
Shepard stood in front of the holographic display at the aft end of the CommCon. File images of the planet from one megameter, its statistics, views of the surface kept pace with him as he spoke to the gathered team members: Kaidan, Ash, and Charles; the turian (Shepard's ARO had tagged him Garrus Vakarian,) the krogan (Urdnot Wrex,) and the quarian (Tali'Zorah nar Rayya.)
"Right, then. As this is our first mission, I wanted to have a preliminary briefing, and then give you time on your own to review the particulars. We'll have a final briefing as we get closer, possibly after we hit orbit and get a more current look at the site.
"Our objective is to extract an asari named Doctor Liara T'Soni from an archaeological dig on a planet called Therum. It's claimed by the Alliance, but has no colonies, and a generally hostile environment. It's volcanically active…much like Io, for those of you who've done Hell's Forge, except it has an atmosphere. This is actually worse, because atmosphere is thick enough to suspend the acidity; left untreated, it will eat through your suit over time. As this will be a hardsuited landing, you should put on a coat of blackout before we drop. Talk to Loadmaster Kobunde in the hangar if you don't have any of your own." He crossed in front of the holograph as he spoke.
"The good news is that this Doctor Liara T'Soni we're looking for is an archaeologist, working a known, enclosed site. So once we get indoors, it should be safe." Head shots of an asari appeared; front, profile, and several candids. "Her mother is this Benezia who's a known associate of Saren. The Council says they subpoenaed Benezia's Alibi Records, and it seems they haven't communicated in over a decade. So I'm not sure how much we're going to get out of her. I've added her profile to the mission data; be sure you add it to your IFF."
He turned and looked at the three aliens in turn. "Which reminds me, do your combat suits all have IFF integration?"
Garrus and Tali were quick to say they did, but the krogan leaned back in the chair – which was obviously too small for him – with a cracking sound. "Not anymore. I've been shot from behind enough times that I never know who's an enemy. But I don't shoot allies."
Shepard's expression hardened. "All right, you've been in combat situations since before I was born, but that's not the way we do it here. You can have gunny Williams integrate your IFF, or you can sit this one out. The armory is port forward, in the hangar. Handle it."
Dropping the issue as if it were completely settled, he turned and walked aft to the holograph. "T'Soni's university sent us all the info they have: site map, the expedition bid, outfitter's manifest, even T'Soni's academic records when she was a student."
Continuing to look at the display, he folded his arms across his chest. "That's what we knew yesterday. This morning, while I was working up this briefing, we got another message from a different university – from another archaeologist who has also worked that site. Apparently, T'Soni left a message that geth were on their way down from orbit. She called for immediate evac, and asked for Council assiatance." He paused for effect, "The message was dated five days ago. Her university apparently scrubbed the pickup when they heard the site was hot, but the request for help didn't work its way through the bureaucracy until now. The geth have been there for…probably a week."
Ash and Kaidan exchanged a worried look: more dead civilians?
"So now it gets interesting," Shepard continued, "This is no longer just a pickup; it may be a fight on the way in, while we're on the ground, and on the way out. Or the asari may be dead, or gone. If they're not there, it means the geth got there first…which means she was in fact valuable. At that point, if there's any sign that they took her instead of killed her, we'll need to pursue immediately.
"More good news: this isn't going to be another Eden Prime, either. We're now equipped with an M-35 Mako assault vehicle." He pointed to the holograph of the six-wheeled APC.
"That should be loads of fun," Wrex shrugged, "but less for me to do."
Shepard nodded once toward Kaidan. "Alenko, you have a question?"
Lowering his hand, Kaidan looked from the krogan to Shepard. "Any idea how many geth we'll be fighting, sir?"
"Not yet. We're still too far out for LRSA to tell us anything more than that there weren't any of those super-dreadnoughts on the side facing us when we relayed in. But the site is currently occulted by the planet, and it's two light-days away, so any data we'd get would be that old. Assuming she's still alive and still down there, she may be very glad to see us." He turned and faced the holographic display, which was currently showing a plan view of the dig site.
"There are still a lot of unknowns. The biggest problem at the moment seems to be that the site is vast – over 20 square kilometers – and we don't know where to look for T'Soni, or where the geth will be, or if either are there at all."
Tali gasped. "Twenty square kilometers?"
"From an archaeological standpoint, it's a tremendously rich site; practically a whole town. Sort of like Pompeii on Earth; it looks like a lava flow just submerged the whole thing, preserving it…in a sense. But the part of it that T'Soni has written papers about is what used to be a prison, or a police office…so I think she'll have been working there. Apparently it may have had or currently has working Prothean technology, so it's a significant find." He pointed at the holograph; an indicator outlined the area where Doctor T'Soni's dig was.
"We'll be able to scan better from orbit, and we'll do that before we drop. The Mako can be configured to seat up to eight, but I want to make sure we have all the tools we'll need to succeed. It'll easily seat the six of us, fully armored, plus a bunch of gear. As we don't know much about what we'll be encountering, we'll need to be prepared for anything.
"Still, I want to leave an empty seat so T'Soni doesn't have to sit on someone's lap on the way up."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Garrus said. "If there are some heavy weapons that might tip the balance, it'd be better to have them along. If it comes to that, I'll volunteer to be an asari seat cushion. I could even provide a harness-like function." The turian moved his arms into a circle in front of him, as if to form a seat belt.
Though he wanted to, Shepard managed to not smile. "Gonna take one for the team?"
Garrus shrugged, feigning modesty. "It's just who I am."
"I'll keep that in mind." Shepard noticed Kaidan and Pressly were both looking amused. "All right; the ground team will include everyone here except our XO, Lieutenant Pressly. If you need any weapons or upgrades, talk with the MFO down in the hangar. He's got a lot of new licenses, and I'm officially cutting his costs down to raw materials for the duration of this Saren mission, and all its tasks. For anyone who doesn't know, that means you should leave one of your suit VIs running the Alliance local mineral scanner; if you find anything we can use, we'll add it to ship's raw stores; that's how we obtain the materials to supply you.
"Any immediate questions?"
Tali asked, "Yes…we're trying to find this Doctor Liara T'Soni, who's the daughter of Matriarch Benezia. Why aren't we looking for Doctor Liara Benezia? Is this really the right person?"
"They're asari," Wrex seemed tired. "It's part of their culture or something. When they hit 700 or 750, they stop breeding, and they call themselves Matriarchs. They act like it's a big deal, throw a party, and take new names. If you looked her up, this Benezia probably used to be Doo-dah T'Soni. Or whatever."
Tali turned to Shepard again. "And about your microfacturing…what systems are you using?"
"That's something we should discuss offline," Shepard admitted. "Or check with the MFO, I'm sure he'd love to talk shop with you."
It was hard to tell what the quarian was thinking; her enviro-suit's mask obscured her face. "And what happens if we find this asari?"
"We get out of there, and find out if she can tell us anything about Matriarch Benezia. If we can't find anyone, not even a corpse, then the geth must have gotten her…which means she was in fact valuable."
"I mean, what if we find only the asari?"
The krogan interrupted, "Then she pretty clearly didn't need help after all, and we should all keep a weather eye on her until we figure out why she called. Maybe they aren't swapping emails because they're already working together, and know they're suspected. For all we know, she could be part of a trap that includes geth so we think she needs our help."
Garrus leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at the quarian. "Why does she get to ask all the questions?"
Shepard regarded the two aliens briefly. "Just quick on the draw, I suppose. You have something?"
Garrus pointed at the holograph, which was currently showing the site map. "Yeah. Does the university's transporter know we're on our way? I doubt they'd be equipped to handle an extraction like this, and it'll get bad if they're wandering around a firefight."
"If we get in and out in a day, we'll still be gone a day before they were originally scheduled to arrive. And I'm pretty sure they said they scrubbed the pickup when they were told someone was on the way."
"Are you kidding?" Ash sat up in her chair. "Sir, I'll bet you lunch they've been told a Council Spectre is on the way." She jabbed a finger toward the Commander as if chiding him. "You're a rock star now. Own it."
Shepard tried not to look embarrassed. "All right, I stand corrected. Thanks, Chief."
Kaidan had been reading the mission briefing document on his omnitool. He pointed at the display. "Do we actually know if there's any working Prothean tech? If there is, the Council should already be all over this place."
"True," Shepard nodded. "It seems the Council keeps a close watch on Prothean technology. Until we know what happened to them, if the Protheans wiped themselves out with gray goo or some other invention of their own, we don't want to have it wipe us out, too. As a Spectre, one of the things I'm studying is what Prothean tech looks like, what we know about how it works, and how to handle it. It's pretty rare stuff, though.
"Personally, I suspect that archaeologists who have discovered any such operational devices - and then had the Council swoop in and impound it - were less than thrilled. It wouldn't surprise me to find there's a sort of underground rebellion against this sort of policy within the archaeology community. When they find something, they keep it to themselves and figure out as much as they can about it before notifying the Council officially."
Wrex leaned to one side and stage-whispered to Tali, "So on Eden Prime, the humans found some Prothean tech, notified the Council immediately, and it still blew up in their faces."
Shepard had walked back to his seat, sat in it, and folded his arms across his chest. "It wasn't until I started finding out about this stuff that I began to wonder about this Doctor T'Soni. The university says she's a tenure-track Associate Professor in Archaeology, seems to get good reviews from the students. But I'll have to confess my experiential ignorance with asari. Mister Wrex, I'd be very interested to hear if you have any insight into asari culture that might be relevant."
"First, I'm not 'Mister Wrex.' I think you'd say Wrex is my 'given name.' Urdnot is my clan." He waved dismissively. "Whatever. Don't worry about it. As for insight," he huffed and leaned back in his chair again. "I've killed a few asari, worked with others. Kind of fragile as lovers, but maybe that's just me. Don't know either of these two. After hearing that thing from the Council hearing, it sounds like this Benezia is demented. Can't tell you much about them if I haven't met them." He turned an eye toward Shepard. "But I'd be real careful until you know the situation. Asari are very...uh...cliquish, especially about family."
"Wait. You heard about Eden Prime and the report we gave to the Council about Saren?"
Wrex shrugged. "Sort of. There was a thing on in one of the lounges at the C-Sec wards access. Some reporter went all blood rage about you and tracked down source footage from Eden Prime. They thought it was a setup, but then FOI'ed the stuff. If you ignore the conspiracy crap, the press thinks you're for real; at least that one does."
"But nothing helpful about asari, or this planet, or anything relevant?" Ash said.
Wrex turned, regarded the human with what looked briefly like disapproval. "Nothing I didn't already say. The asari I fought against are dead. The ones I fought alongside are tougher than they look. And fast. And sneaky."
"All right, thanks." Shepard turned to Garrus. "Any insight from C-Sec, Detective? Official or unofficial?"
"Um…yeah, about that. I'm not officially a detective anymore. And please don't call me Vakarian, or I'll think I'm in trouble. Just call me Garrus." He shifted in his chair; enough time to change subjects, not enough to invite questions. "As for the asari, I think Wrex over there has come to about the same conclusion I have: They're generally reliant on stealth and speed, but their biotics make them more robust than you'd expect. The ones I've crossed paths with have been devious and manipulative. But I've been in C-Sec, dealing with the worst that Citadel civilization – if you want to call it that – has to offer."
He looked pointedly at Tali. "But what I really want to hear is what sort of threat the geth can present. And more importantly, how do we counter it effectively?"
Tali looked from Garrus to Shepard quickly, pointed at her mask as if asking, me?
Shepard gestured to her. "If you would."
Tali rose from her chair and clasped her hands in front of herself. She glanced around the CommCon. "It's a common misconception – even among my people – that geth are robots. The geth are not robots, they are software. Each one was designed to be incapable of independent computation, though that doesn't mean much when they are only about as smart as…" her VI suggested an Earth animal, "a rat, or a small dog. Their return from beyond the Veil is as much of a surprise to us as it is to everyone else. They have been there since the Uprising."
Garrus asked, "Do you know what they've been doing all that time?"
Tali sighed. "Not even a little. That's what's so troubling. Believe it or not, I'm one of the few quarians who has had much real interaction with them since their return."
Wrex sounded amused, "So of all the experienced experts on the geth, you're one of them?"
With her hands folded neatly in front of her, the quarian had given the impression she was presenting to a classroom. She stood silently motionless for a few seconds. At last, she fidgeted, "Uh…well…yes, actually."
Shepard pressed, "So what are our most effective attacks going to be?"
"Simple electrical attacks will always be effective against machines, but they can manufacture platforms, and repair or cannibalize the damaged ones so quickly that they will swarm you if you're not fast at destroying them all. However, my experience so far suggests that they have evolved since the Uprising. Originally, each geth unit was meant to have highly specialized functions, but also be capable of sharing information. The specialized functions have practically disappeared; every geth can now assume the functions of any other. They are…sort of like a software analog of a utility fog.
"Each geth unit is a low-level intelligence, like a cell in your body. Only when they work together do they become very intelligent. So far, I have found that the best way to exploit this is with a software attack that inverts concept values and propagates this value through other geth units, sort of like flipping the response to an IFF. With the right VI, you can make a geth platform freeze in its tracks, and if the attack is very successful, it will even attack other geth platforms."
"Sounds like just what we need." Shepard was taking notes on his omnitool. "How can we implement it?"
Tali sighed. "I don't know. Our computational systems are very different from yours. You could probably virtualize the processes to run them, but I have no idea how reliable or fast they'll be. The only alternative would be to build quarian systems hardware for you, but then you'll have to learn how to use them."
Garrus nodded thoughtfully. "Strategically, it might be better for us to keep the combat modes we have, and let you specialize in hacking and cracking the geth from cover."
"That would keep us from inverting IFF values twice on the same unit," Shepard agreed.
Wrex grinned with malice; it was actually a disturbing sight. "And leave me free to bash them to bits."
"If you don't mind doing things the old-fashioned way," Garrus added. "Ranged attacks offer much higher returns with much lower risk."
"How vulnerable are they to biotic attacks?" Kaidan looked past the information displayed on his ARO. "Can I use any combo attacks to my advantage? Or coordinate with you?"
Even masked, Tali managed to look uncertain. "I'm sorry, I just don't know that much about biotics," she confessed. "Quarian biotics are very rare, so we simply haven't worked biotic powers into our tactics.
"As far as I know, geth hardware is subject to the normal vulnerabilities of physics, so you can act on them like any living thing, but they may be more resistant to the same physical abuse." She glanced at Wrex. "I don't think they're krogan tough, but they're probably better than quarian tough." As she looked around the CommCon, she continued, "Or human tough. Or…um…turian tough."
Wrex chuckled. "You heard it here, folks. Krogan means badass."
Garrus shook his head. "Oh, great. Now he's going to be impossible to work with."
Kaidan stayed on task. "So you don't know about how to optimize a combo attack."
"Uh…the only thing that comes to mind is if you were to lift a bunch of them, and then I crack one that's not lifted. That one would be able to shoot the others quite easily."
"But so could we," said Ash.
"Mm…yes," Tali seemed reluctant, "But the other geth not caught in his biotics would probably take longer to realize what the 'hacked' one was doing. If you pop your head up and start shooting, they'll all start to shoot you immediately."
"It looks like we've run out of time; you two should probably compare notes offline," Shepard stood again. "Don't worry, we're still a day out, and we'll meet again after I have a more detailed analysis of the location. The mission files are in the public NfoX on the DCE under Therum Landing. If you have any specific insights or questions, I'm not hard to find. We'll build up a more definite mission plan for the final briefing. Thanks for your attention; for anyone who has anything pressing, this meeting is officially ended."
# # #
Liara took the lift back down to the bottom level of the chamber and made her way to the tent with the main computing block. A site camera showed a view of the surface entrance to the tuberamp, hundreds of feet above; it would let her know when someone arrived, and hopefully give her some ability to respond appropriately.
Compression reprioritised: estimated completion 01 hour 07 minutes.
She cast a worried glance at the door camera view. Even if it finishes before they get here, I have to find another way out.
She studied the wireframe map again; until the Scan One data had been fully processed, there had been some areas of the site beyond the previous 3D map. The cylindrical core of the section, originally thought to be only a structural feature, now appeared to have a group of piston elevators enclosing it. If this was true, it had an institutional-class synthetic muscle designed to operate for lifetimes; that alone was boggling. She simply had to get this knowledge out of these ruins, and that technology itself might allow her to escape by granting access to the other tuberamp.
Matriarch Feshta would have called it "an interesting symmetry," Liara thought. And we would have laughed, and she would have laughed with us.
She reached into the holograph and manipulated the view.
Of course, the controls for the barrier curtain are in the highest room. She looked up at it, high above, and sighed at the thought of another trip back to the top.
Even if there is access out the other way, I don't know which way they'll try to come down first. I have to find a way to defend myself until my pickup arrives, and find it right now.
She gestured to her omnitool. "Hypervisor, can the compression process be virtually overclocked? I need that data compression completed right now. Permanent hardware damage is acceptable, but data loss is not."
The process displayed an avatar for the VI that looked like a character from a vid Liara had enjoyed as a child. It emoted thinking as the processor began to compute a way to fulfill the request, as well as its ability to do so.
"Error correction will allow the compression task to complete in 16 minutes," answered the VI. "A better solution might be to take the data without compression. The Scan Two dataset can be copied to a section of the array for easy removal. The unit could be removed in just a few minutes with your omnitool. It is a standard full-size 200g PIRAD block."
"Compress it anyway," she said, "It might be necessary to have the data transmitted. I will try to find another way out."
At the distant sound of the door opening, she ducked out of the tent; light blazed down the tuberamp and through the scaffolding far above her. She gasped at the thought; the geth are already here!
Turning quickly to the display again, she saw armed androids coming through the ground-level entrance; her biotics flared as part of a fight-or-flight response. Where did I pack a weapon? With geth already inside the perimeter, it was much too late to go get one from her armory safe.
Lighting her omnitool, she swiped to the camp interface, and locked all the weapon containers remotely. Then she manually tripped every truss ring, starting from the outer door. A series of cracks sounded before the power supply failed; it was instantly dark. Though she didn't know that eight geth platforms had been caught in the electric mayhem high above, she did hear hear the repeated crashes as two of them tumbled through the scaffold like pachinko balls, each falling all the way to the bottom of the chamber with a dusty krump.
She spun the holographic control wheel, activated the omnitool's "torch" function, and ran up the ramp to her right, with her omnitool lighting the way. Perhaps the barrier curtain can be activated from this level as well.
Stepping into the dimly-lit room, she stopped and checked the console, waved her hand through it to activate it. The holographic interface popped to life and appeared to fold open; Liara touched the control to activate the barrier curtain.
Nothing happened.
She lit her omnitool and flipped back to the operating interchange; an illustration showed that the control she had operated was the correct one.
She touched it again, and the console warbled in its odd, Prothean way.
She touched it a third time, and was rewarded with that strange, electric smell. She didn't even have time to yelp as something grabbed her from behind and lifted her off the ground.
For a moment, nothing else happened. Liara could feel herself in the irresistible grip of a powered field of some kind, but it didn't feel biotic. She tried to move her hands, but couldn't even budge them.
She couldn't work her omnitool; worse, the device failed to respond to spoken commands.
Struggling was impossible.
None of her biotic powers had any discernable effect.
More geth marched calmly into the chamber and collected the fallen robots.
It was only a matter of time until they got through, and she was helpless to do anything but watch them working.
# # #
Hardly a day went by that Professor Hannell didn't curse her luck. Wontamir's Complex, caught this soon, was practically 100% curable, but the equipment involved had to be accessed each day for the months of reconstructive therapy. Even afcRNA wasn't a complete solution. Nothing about her interim work schedule was affected, other than having to go to the clinic each morning (at a time convenient for her.)
PVRing to the AT-K/T121 site for the first actual data collection with the new laser was pleasing, but somehow less satisfying than having been there herself to actually contribute. Even a simple task like making a bed with someone's help took less than 50% of the time required to do so alone; how much extra effort had been required of young Liara?
Still, there's almost no one I'd trust to be as meticulous about curating the site, she thought.
She had stayed connected to the site hypervisor, watching the second scan complete, but the low-bandwidth link failed shortly after she had logged out.
No amount of effort on her part seemed to be able to re-establish the connection. A troubleshooting VI informed her that the failure was apparently at the site.
Days later, when the connection became available again, the site was a wreck. Half the cameras were out. The ring trusses in tuberamp #2 were attempting to repair themselves after having been shorted out, the elevator was damaged, and the scaffolding was a shambles. The main site itself looked like a firefight had taken place there, and worst of all, Liara was nowhere to be found. Her p-net was not even showing up on the site's network.
And there was a message, terse but very worrying: To anyone receiving this message: Help! Armed geth are on their way here, I need to be picked up immediately! Send Council help if you can! And it gave the coordinates for the dig site.
Either she's been killed and utterly obliterated, or left the planet by some other means. Perhaps she's been kidnapped…she wouldn't be the first. But geth? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised they're back, but why are they on Therum?
After notifying the administration, Professor Hannell realized that the precompile for Scan Three – the "payoff" for the entire expedition – was complete, the laser was powered and ready, and the connection she had would allow her to start it.
The loss of Doctor T'Soni – a fellow archaeologist, mentee, friend, and a brilliant scholar – was not something Professor Hannell was prepared to deal with at the moment, but to not gather the data would make it all for nothing if it proved to be true.
Had there been any possibility of Liara still being on Therum, let alone within range of the laser, Professor Hannell would have waited for a reply.
Instead, and grimly, she instructed the site controller: Begin Scan Three.
About an hour later, the machine's answer arrived, Laser startup and self-calibration successful, Precompile process K/T121-DLS 3.1 (9% complete) must complete before scan can begin. Estimated time required for scan: 09 Hours 55 minutes.
Professor Hannell sat back in her office chair and folded her arms with a sigh. Liara, you'd better still be alive.
# # #
Within an hour of their arrival, the geth had taken over the site, explored the camp, noted Liara's presence, and collected the non-functional platforms. They tested the barrier curtain's strength with small arms fire, but not directly at her.
The lift descended again, and a krogan emerged, laughing as he sauntered toward her. "So, you are trapped." He put a shoulder against the barrier curtain, casually testing its strength, then uselessly fired his shotgun at it. "Heh…well…I don't know how you did this, but it won't hold up for long." Returning to the lift, he looked her way just before stepping into it, "Don't go anywhere, little asari." His laugh echoed around the cavern as the lift rose away.
Liara considered dictating her Last Will and Testament to the omnitool, but then remembered that the device was not responsive.
The geth came back in and spent several hours doing something that she couldn't see. She could hear occasional digital noises, and speculated that they were trying to hack their way past the Prothean technology.
Eventually, it was silent again.
Having been awake for almost 34 hours, she drifted to sleep.
Faint clanking and scraping noises awakened her; they were bringing down a huge torpedo-like thing, almost as big as the mining laser. It was hard to see in the near-darkness, but they seemed to be using their bodies almost as insects would, carefully lowering it to the ground. With the whine of some massive articulators, the thing unfolded itself into a four-legged cannon. Liara could see only the top of its weapons array, but it looked like it must have been seven meters tall.
She was just noticing that several asari-sized units were gathering on the levels of scaffold against the far wall – and that they all seemed to be focused on her – when a flash illuminated the entire dig site. The blast that accompanied it was startling, but the thunderous echo hadn't even died out before the thing fired again.
And again.
And again.
The blistering assault continued for what seemed like hours, during which a few grains of mortar shook loose in the Prothean chamber that contained her. Out in the cavern, glowing shrapnel arced away from the impacts; the nearby platform juddered and the cantilevered parts of it finally collapsed.
Eventually, a boulder the size of a skycar plummeted past Liara's view; the sound of its impact was drowned in the noise of the geth machine. It continued until a second boulder (the size of a small house) dropped from above. The assault stopped instantly.
Geth androids descended the scaffold; pieces of the thing were lifted away and removed.
A single geth stepped out of the elevator, and approached Liara, stopping just beyond the barrier curtain.
Its voice was strangely ragged and muffled: "Liara T'Soni, your mother wishes your assistance. We have not yet found a way to extract you from your current entrapment. If you have any insight into how this can be achieved, we invite you to disclose it."
Liara said nothing, hoping that her silence would be interpreted as it being impossible for her to hear anything.
The geth waited for about a minute. "We will resume our efforts," it said. It turned away, and ascended in the lift again.
On reflection, it was chilling to think that her mother had told her exactly this.
Minutes later, she noticed the electronics in the "Safe Zone" tent casting a soft glow on the open flap; the laser was being activated. In the new silence of the cavern, she recognized the whine of the mining laser's actuators, and operating lights appeared on its exterior. The precompile must have finished, she thought, but why would the geth start the scan?
Warning lights began to strobe, a warning horn sounded.
Then she realized, Goddess help me, I'm too close…!
She looked around in desperation until her heart sank; she wasn't going to get out of this one.
Her last thought before the laser started its third scan: Maybe it'll be painless.
# # #
afcRNA: active fast-coding ribonucleic acid
APC: Armored Personnel Carrier
Alibi Records: Generally, public records can provide some information supporting a defedant's statement that they were somewhere else at the time of a crime, but in cases where more detail is required, "Alibi Records" are "disincriminating" information that is maintained by an NGO [non-covernmental organization] – the name of which varies from world to world – that could potentially be used to indict on its own, but is only used to provide an alibi against a charge.
Blackout™: coating of protective gel applied to hardsuit armor as extra protection against adverse environments. It also provides lubrication for quieting of movement. Its coloring (black) provides some cover in case of active camouflage failure, as well as justification for the product's name.
DCE: Distributed Computing Environment
FOI: Freedom of Information; part of the Council Transparency Accords, granting journalists access to relevant government records. The Spectre Office is officially exempt from these laws.
Hell's Forge: Alliance training on the volcanically active Jovian satellite of Io. The terrain and topography is typical of such worlds, and the location is readily accessible from Trident (Alliance HQ).
LRSA: Long Range Scan Analysis
M-35 Mako seating: per the Mass Effect Wikia; briefly, it seats at least four as demonstrated on Feros (when Lisbeth Baynham jumps out after riding with the team,) and the interior is actually shown seating eight on the official (and therefore canon) Paragon Lost movie. I mean seriously...an APC that carries three, including a driver? Take a page from the film Aliens; now that's what I call an APC.
PIRAD: Parallel Isolinear Redactive Array Device; removable storage that can also function as secondary system memory.
PVR: Polyphase Virtual Reality
VRS: Virtual Reality Simulation
